Brigid Laffan

From policy entrepreneur to policy manager: the challenge facing the European Commission

Abstract The central argument of this article is that the European Commission has consolidated its role as a ‘policy entrepreneur’ but that it must pay attention also to its role as a ‘policy manager’. The Commissions capacity for management is much weaker than its power of initiative because it lacks sizeable bureaucratic resources and largely implements policies through a system of shared administration with the member states. The Commissions financial management reform programme which was launched by President Santer when he took over from President Delors provides the focus of this article. The expansion of the budget and the saliency of fraud underlined the need for the Commission to enhance its management of EU finances. The programme involves reform enhancing the self-regulation of the Commission (internal reform) and the development of administrative partnerships with the member states.

The European Union polity: a union of regulative, normative and cognitive pillars

This article regards the EU as a social construction which can be understood as an institutional field characterized by three pillars. The three pillars are not the usual ones associated with the constitutional framework: the community pillar, the common foreign and security policy, and justice and home affairs. The pillars in question are the regulative, normative and cognitive structures that together characterize an institution. The objective of this article is to analyse the three pillars and their interaction. This approach enables us to identify the logic of different processes at work in the Union and the existence of different foundations of legitimacy.

Ireland and the European Union

This study of Irelands EU experience provides a rich account of Irelands membership of the EU and the impact of the EU on the institutions, policy and economy of Ireland. For many, the Irish experience provides a model of the potential rewards of European integration. But just how far are the changes in Irish society the result of EU membership? What difference has the EU made to Ireland?

Becoming a ‘Living Institution’: The Evolution of the European Court of Auditors

This article analyses the evolution of the European Court of Auditors, the Union’s newest institution, from the perspective of historical institutionalism. The main claim in the article is that the Court of Auditors had to strive to become a living institution, to find its place in the Union’s order, in an incremental fashion. The manner in which it developed norms and procedures for auditing are probed, in addition to its search for co‐operative relations with other EU institutions. The Court of Auditors became more embedded in the Union system as financial management assumed greater salience on the Union agenda, which in turn led to enhanced status and competences for the Court of Auditors.

“While you're over there in Brussels, get us a grant”: The management of the structural funds in Ireland

Abstract This paper examines the current reform of the European Communitys structural funds and assesses Irelands response to the reform proposals. The administrative structures which have evolved to manage the funds in Ireland are described, as are the goals pursued by Irish policy makers in relation to the funds. Irelands approach to the funds leaves it ill‐equipped to respond to two of the Communitys dominant concerns, programmes and partnership. Put simply, the new rules of the game pose difficulties for Irish policy makers.

The agenda 2000 negotiations: La Présidence CoÛte Cher?

This analysis of Germanys management of the Agenda 2000 negotiations in the first half of 1999 has two aims. First, it seeks to highlight the critical role of the presidency in the management of large package deal negotiations in the Union. Second, it seeks to explore the contention of Council insiders that the ‘presidency costs’. This arises from the tension between national preferences and the need for the presidency, as an office of the Union, to foster agreement by producing compromises and by mediating between divergent interests. The paper highlights the complex relationship between the two questions and concludes that the presidency is the lynchpin or central node in any package deal negotiations because of the need for vertical and horizontal co‐ordination of dossiers that are handled in a number of different fora. The presidency is centrally placed to act as an architect of compromise. The ‘presidency costs’ also in that Germany had to abandon its preference for a significant cut in its net contribution in return for an agreement in Berlin.

‘Bringing Politics Back In’. Domestic Conflict and the Negotiated Implementation of EU Nature Conservation Legislation in Ireland

Abstract Why do some member states fail to comply with European Union (EU) environmental legislation? By focusing on the institutional factors relating to EU compliance, scholars have shown that a misfit between national administrative, legal and policy systems, traditions and practices can impede member state adoption of EU legislation. However, the concept of misfit on its own is not sufficient in order to explain delayed compliance. Actor-oriented perspectives have developed arguments about the crucial role domestic actors, and in particular veto-players, play in the implementation of EU directives. On occasion, misfit between the ‘national’ and the ‘European’ can seriously affect the interests of key domestic policy actors who have the resources to engage in a process of politicization in order to ensure that the implementation of an EU directive conforms to their preferences. Such politicization can give rise to delayed or even failed implementation if key actors fail to agree. The aim of this article is to focus on one such case of politicized compliance, namely, the implementation of the 1992 EU Habitats Directive in Ireland. As the contested implementation of the directive in Ireland shows, implementation can become politicized as domestic actors react to the institutional, legal and policy implications that emerge as a result of the need to comply with EU legislation. Successful adoption of EU environmental legislation subsequently results from a high degree of political management by EU and domestic policy actors negotiating across the EUs multi-level governance arena.

INTERREG III and cross‐border cooperation in the Island of Ireland

Abstract This article analyses the interaction and intersection between an EU policy instrument ‐ INTERREG ‐ and bottom‐up mobilisation of cross‐border groups on the Irish border The analysis involves an exploration of the interaction between the planning and negotiation of the INTERREG III programme for the border area between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the establishment of new political institutions arising from the Good Friday Agreement and the ‘bottom‐up’ mobilisation of new territorial actors on the border. Given that the Irish border is a contested one, it offers a useful lens to study the role of the EU in sustaining or mediating political conflict. The findings suggest that the EU, notably the Commission, plays an important role in altering the opportunity structure of domestic actors and in providing them with new policy models. However, the ability of sub‐state actors to take advantage of the new political space depends on developments in domestic politics.

The EU in the Domestic: Interreg III and the Good Friday Institutions

The focus of this article is on the role of the European programme for cross-border co-operation - Interreg - in developing and promoting cross-border co-operation in the context of the new institutions established for the implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The elaboration and negotiation of the third Interreg programme for the Irish border area took place in the context of a fluid and at times unstable institutional environment. The analysis proceeds in five stages: an overview of the analytical framework, examination of the preferences of the European Commission concerning Interreg III, analysis of the interaction between the establishment of the new institutions and the changing opportunity structures for those wishing to influence the content and implementation of Interreg III, examination of the manner in which the Interreg programme was elaborated, and analysis of the final stages of the negotiations of the programme and the negotiations on a role for the border regions.

Getting to a European Constitution: From Fischer to the IGC

On the 18th of June, 2004, Mr. Bertie Ahearn, the Irish Prime Minister, as Chair of the European Council, announced the successful conclusion of the negotiations on a Treaty to establish a Constitution for Europe. This was a historic moment for the Union as it marked the successful conclusion of the fifth episode of treaty negotiations since the mid-1980s. Moreover, its achievement went beyond previous efforts at treaty reform for two reasons. First, the IGC was proceeded by a Convention, an institutional form that altered the negotiating and bargaining process by widening access to the deliberations on treaty reform and going beyond the confines of national governments. Second, the member states agreed a Constitution for Europe, a document that went beyond the existing constitutional architecture in the form of treaties. The origins of the Constitution may be traced right back to the Schuman Declaration in 1950, the Rome Treaties of 1957, the seminal judgements of the European Court of Justice in 1963/64, and the other periodic episodes of treaty reform in the Union. As an ideal and idea, it owes something to the lifelong conviction of Altiero Spinelli, a committee federalist, that the Monnet method of incremental integration had to be complemented at some stage by political integration. Spinelli, an MEP in the first directly elected European Parliament, established the ‘Crocodile Club’ of like-minded MEPs to encourage the parliament to prepare a constitution for the European Union. On February 14th, 1984, a significant majority of MEPs, 237 to 31 with 43 abstentions adopted a draft treaty. Altiero Spinelli, visited all of the member state capitals in his efforts to get national governments animated on the constitution.